The Chicken or the Egg- Which Evolved First?

[Milton Platt]

Just a fun mental experiment to test your theories of evolution or Intelligent Design on.

Please do not go google someone else's explanation and post it.

Please explain how you came to your conclusion.

It was not as if a dinosaur lays an egg and a chicken hatched from it. There is no clear line of demarcation. It is a gradual process.

Edit: In other words, there were eggs being laid before there were any birds at all, let alone chickens.

 

[sayak83]

Just a fun mental experiment to test your theories of evolution or Intelligent Design on.

Please do not go google someone else's explanation and post it.

Please explain how you came to your conclusion.

The egg obviously, as the egg contained the first chicken embroyo inside it. The drawing of the line between an ancestral and descendant species is arbitrary, but wherever you draw it, the embroyo in the egg is continuous with the descendant species and hence its the first chicken egg being laid by the non-chicken mom.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Please explain how you came to your conclusion.

Thinking, not through some scripture. The progeny is different from its parents, even if every slightly, which develops into a slightly different individual. Its own progeny will change further but will carry the difference. That is how evolution progresses (or sometimes digresses). Therefore, egg first.

 

[FearGod]

Just a fun mental experiment to test your theories of evolution or Intelligent Design on.

Please do not go google someone else's explanation and post it.

Please explain how you came to your conclusion.

While there's an egg then there's a chicken, design is the only logic option.

 

[Willamena]

Chickens gave birth to chickens, and dinosaurs to dinosaurs. God bless natural selection.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

The egg came first. It would be a trickier question if you said 'which came first, the chicken or the chicken egg.'

 

[Willamena]

The egg still needs someone to lay it. Even the chicken egg.

Edit: Let me put it another way--there was never an instance when something that was not a chicken gave birth to a chicken. Evolution is about species, not individuals.

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

Chickens are just a domesticated variety of a species that still exists in the wild--they are still classified as the same species because they can and will successfully interbreed if given the opportunity.

 

[Ouroboros]

The egg still needs someone to lay it. Even the chicken egg.

Edit: Let me put it another way--there was never an instance when something that was not a chicken gave birth to a chicken. Evolution is about species, not individuals.

That's a very good point.

It's basically mixing categories. The egg is a generic concept. The chicken is a species, or group of individuals. The laying of an egg is the act of a single individual. And that's why it becomes a conundrum for some. When did a specific individual produce a generic thing that is also specific for the whole group of individuals? Well, it's a matter of how we categorize things rather than when something like this happened. It happens all the time, but it's our way of trying to fix a time, place, individual, for the generic that's causing the problem.

 

[Acim]

The egg came first. It would be a trickier question if you said 'which came first, the chicken or the chicken egg.'

The trickier question is how I understand the inquiry. How I thought everyone, over the age of 6, understood the question.

My take is: how could it possibly matter to us now? But also, I reserve the right to be fascinated by ancient tales that seek to explain the trickier question: which came first, entities that lay* eggs, or eggs that produce entities?

 

[LuisDantas]

While there's an egg then there's a chicken, design is the only logic option.

Not if we are to consider fact as opposed to fantasy.

 

[FearGod]

Not if we are to consider fact as opposed to fantasy.

If you want facts then you should be here on earth billions of years ago to see what had happened.

 

[LuisDantas]

If you want facts then you should be here on earth billions of years ago to see what had happened.

There IS such a thing as scientific research.

 

[fantome profane]

The egg came first. It would be a trickier question if you said 'which came first, the chicken or the chicken egg.'

Not much trickier. The answer would still be the chicken egg. The first chicken egg came from a bird that was very very much like a chicken, but not a chicken.

 

[FearGod]

There IS such a thing as scientific research.

The origin of earth and how life originated and evolved isn't known, it's hypothesis and not facts.

 

[LuisDantas]

The origin of earth and how life originated and evolved isn't known, it's hypothesis and not facts.

You are attempting to present scientific knowledge as if it lacked any falseability whatsoever.

 

[FearGod]

You are attempting to present scientific knowledge as if it lacked any falseability whatsoever.

It's the truth, we're dealing with a hypothesis and not facts,
if it's facts then we don't need to discuss it because we can never falsify a fact.

 

[LuisDantas]

It's the truth, we're dealing with a hypothesis and not facts,

Not at all. There is a huge difference between a hypothesis and a scientific theory.

Scientific knowledge is tested, falseable, passible of improvement. It is very much the most reliable that humanity can hope to achieve.

if it's facts then we don't need to discuss it because we can never falsify a fact.

It is indeed sadly pointless and wasteful to discuss "whether" there was intelligent design.

 

[Midnight Rain]

Just a fun mental experiment to test your theories of evolution or Intelligent Design on.

Please do not go google someone else's explanation and post it.

Please explain how you came to your conclusion.

Eggs are used by far more species than just chickens. As we know that traits are inheritable it would mean that the ancestors of chickens had eggs. Therefore the egg did come before the chicken.

However the question is fundamentally flawed when you realize that the egg is the chicken. Its like asking what came first, the child or the adult? Almost all species of complex multi-cellular life has life stages wherein it has some equivalent to infancy to geriatric stages. This particular riddle, if we want to call it that, is talking specifically about the trait of chickens that they lay eggs.

 

[Ouroboros]

However the question is fundamentally flawed when you realize that the egg is the chicken. Its like asking what came first, the child or the adult? Almost all species of complex multi-cellular life has life stages wherein it has some equivalent to infancy to geriatric stages. This particular riddle, if we want to call it that, is talking specifically about the trait of chickens that they lay eggs.

That's very good! I like "the egg is the chicken."